Tuesday, April 05, 2005

Democracy, Diet, and Consciousness

Well, religion was easy (see previous post). But what next ? Let me give ago at something that I actually think I have an original idea about (which doesn't mean I'm the first person ever saying that - only that I thought of it by myself).

The question I start with is why democracy works ? Or maybe the better question is how it works ? But actually, the real question is what is the value of your vote in a democracy. The argument against it is old and banalic. It goes something like this: the chances your vote would make any difference is zero for any practical matter. So why do it ? According to this, voting is actually an irrational activity. And my answer is ... Well, actually I don't have an answer, but here is my analysis of the situation. What I think is happening is that there is some kind of a "collective consciousness" a voter shares with his fellow voters (at least I say there could be sometimes - actually, maybe there isn't, which makes my analysis void but interesting). This collective consciousness results in all the member in this "conscious group" to vote the same way, which gives a power to this group. And if you're still not convinced, consider the following:

I compare voting to going on a diet. Suppose you're on a diet, and that on Wednesday lunch you're offered a cake. Should you take it ? Someone may claim that refusing that cake is an irrational activity. Why ? Well, the argument would go something like this: the chances this specific piece of cake would make any difference is zero for any practical matter. So why not eat it ? My answer would be that there is some kind of a "collective consciousness" a person holds. It creates the linkage between the Wednesday noon being of that person, to his weekend being. This continuing consciousness is what makes skipping any single cake, a rational thing to do (assuming you want to loose weight).

So, to generalize:

We have a group of consciousness instances in a certain space. They are not the same. Anything done by a single consciousness may be meaningless. But something ties them all together, causing them to act the same, which makes the desired result:
==> For the democracy voting, the "space" is the group of people, and the instances are each person's vote.
==> For diet, the "space" is time, and the instances are the person's "being" at a certain time.

Maybe the linkage is not as strong in one as it is in the other. But the principal is the same.

All of this actually brings me to another interesting issue for me. Basically, I claim that a person "being" is changed over time. Which might indicate we shouldn't hold people accountable for something they did a long time ago. But this is for a different post.

Note to self (nobody is reading this, are they?) - I really wants to try and write this better. Maybe I'll try a dialogue.

Note to other (assuming somebody is reading this) - was this clear ?

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